In the past, semiconductor device design and manufacturing were typically performed at the same facility. However, the current trend in semiconductor manufacturing is to perform the design function at one or more design facilities and then to outsource manufacturing by sending the semiconductor design information to one or more manufacturing facilities, or foundries, to fabricate the device according to the received design information.
For example, FIG. 1 shows a known semiconductor design and manufacturing system 10 including a plurality of design centers 12 providing semiconductor device design information, such as in a form commonly known as a “tapeout,” to a plurality of foundries 14 to produce a production run of a semiconductor design. The tapeout information may include semiconductor design information derived from a plurality of sources involved with the design, manufacturing processes, and quality control of a semiconductor production run. One of the problems with such a system is that each of the foundries 14 may have a respective manufacturing process requiring that semiconductor specific design information be provided in a specific format tailored for that foundry 14. For example, each foundry 14 may require different forms to be filled out detailing a semiconductor manufacturing process and provided with the design information for a device to be produced. Typically, a different form must be filled out by the design center 12 for each respective foundry 14 that the design center 12 wishes to send a semiconductor manufacturing run. Such forms are typically filled out manually for each different foundry selected to manufacture the desired semiconductor device and may include multiple pages of check boxes that are required to be completed for each foundry selected. This manual process of filling out complicated forms is known to be error prone and time consuming, especially when more than one foundry has been selected to produce a desired semiconductor device.
It is understood that the following detailed description is exemplary and explanatory only and not to be viewed as being restrictive of the present invention as claimed. These and other aspects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent after a review of the following description of the preferred embodiments and the appended claims.